On January 11th, the newspapers published a government announcement from the Ministry of Public Education regarding the conscription into military service of 183 students from Kiev University "for committing disturbances collectively." The Provisional Rules of July 29th, 1899 – this threat hanging over the student body and society – are being implemented less than a year and a half after their adoption, and the government appears to be hastening to justify itself for applying an unprecedented punitive measure, coming forward with an entire indictment, sparing no words in depicting student "outrages."

Outrages, each more terrible than the last. In the summer – an all-student congress in Odessa with the program of organizing all Russian students to express every sort of protest regarding phenomena of academic, social, and political life. For these criminal political aims, all student delegates were arrested and documents confiscated. But the ferment does not subside; it grows and persistently manifests itself in many higher educational institutions. Students wish freely and independently to discuss and manage their common affairs. Their administration – with that soulless formalism which has always distinguished Russian bureaucracy – responds with petty harassment, drives discontent to extreme proportions, and involuntarily prompts thought among youth not yet bogged down in the mire of bourgeois stagnation toward protest against the entire system of police and bureaucratic despotism.

Kiev students demand the removal of a professor who has taken the position of a departed colleague. The administration resists, drives the youth to "gatherings and demonstrations," and… yields. Students convene a meeting to discuss why such vile things are possible as the rape of a girl by two soldiers (so the rumor goes). The administration sentences the principal "culprits" to the guardhouse. They refuse to comply. They are expelled. A crowd demonstratively sees the expelled students off at the station. A new meeting is convened; students remain until evening, refusing to leave until the rector appears. The vice-governor and the chief of the gendarme administration arrive with a detachment of soldiers, who surround the university and enter the auditorium, and – invite the rector. What do you think the students demand – perhaps a constitution? No, they demand that punishment by guardhouse not be applied and that the expelled be readmitted. Participants of the meeting are registered and sent home.

Consider this striking discrepancy between the modesty and harmlessness of the students' demands – and the panic of the government, which acts as though an axe were already raised over the foundations of its dominion. Nothing so much betrays our "almighty" government as this panic. Better than any "criminal proclamations," it demonstrates to this – it shows to everyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear – that it feels itself utterly insecure and believes only in the force of the bayonet and the whip that protect it from popular uprising. Seasoned by decades of experience, the government has become firmly convinced that it is surrounded by combustible material, that the slightest spark is sufficient, that a mere protest against the guardhouse is enough to kindle a conflagration. And if so, then it stands to reason that exemplary punishment is necessary: to conscript hundreds of students! "Give a sergeant the role of Voltaire!"[116] – this formula has not grown obsolete one whit. On the contrary, the twentieth century is destined to see its genuine realization.

This new punitive measure – new in its attempt to resurrect what has long since died – prompts many thoughts and comparisons. Three generations ago, in the times of Nicholas I, conscription into military service was a natural punishment, fully corresponding to the entire structure of Russian serf society. Young noblemen were conscripted to compel them to serve and work their way up to officer rank as the price of the nobility's freedom. A peasant was conscripted into military service as into long-term hard labor, where inhuman tortures of the "green street"[117] and the like awaited him. But now more than a quarter century has passed since we have had "universal" military service, the introduction of which was lauded in its time as a great democratic reform. Universal military service – not merely on paper but in fact – is undoubtedly a democratic reform: it breaks with class distinction and introduces the equality of citizens. But if that were truly the case, could conscription into military service then serve as punishment? And if the government transforms military service into punishment, does it not thereby prove that we stand far closer to the recruit system than to universal military service? The Provisional Rules of 1899 tear off the Pharisaic mask and expose the Asiatic essence even of those institutions of ours that most resemble European ones. In essence, we have neither had nor do we have universal military service, because the privileges of noble birth and wealth create a multitude of exceptions. In essence, we have neither had nor do we have anything resembling the equality of citizens in military service. On the contrary, the barracks are thoroughly saturated with the spirit of the most abominable lack of rights. Complete defenselessness of the soldier from among the peasants or workers, the trampling of human dignity, extortion, beatings – beatings and more beatings. And for those who have influential connections and money – privileges and exemptions. It is no wonder that conscription into this school of arbitrary rule and violence can be punishment and indeed very severe punishment, approaching the deprivation of rights. The government counts on teaching "rebels" discipline in this school. Will it not miscalculate? Will not the school of Russian military service become a military school for revolution? Certainly, not all students will have the strength to complete the full course of such a school. Some will be broken by the heavy burden, destroyed by collision with military authorities; others – the weak and flabby – will be frightened by the barracks; but still others will be tempered by it, will have their horizons broadened, will be forced to think through and feel their emancipatory strivings. They will now experience the full force of arbitrary rule and oppression through their own experience, when all their human dignity will be made dependent on the discretion of a sergeant, one capable of often deliberately mocking the "educated." They will see how the position of the common people really stands; they will suffer anguish over the outrages and violence they will be forced to witness daily, and will understand that those injustices and quibbles from which students suffer are but a drop in the ocean of popular oppression. Whoever understands this will leave military service with an Hannibalic oath[118] to struggle together with the advanced class of the people for the liberation of the people from despotism.

But the humiliation of the new punishment is no less infuriating than its cruelty. The government issues a challenge to all those in whom a sense of decency remains, declaring the students who protested against arbitrary rule to be simple hooligans – much as it declared exiled worker-strikers to be people of vicious conduct. Look at the government announcement: it bristles with words: disturbance, rioting, outrages, shamelessness, licentiousness. On the one hand, acknowledgment of criminal political aims and aspiration to political protest; on the other – treating students as mere hooligans needing lessons in discipline. This is a slap in the face to Russian public opinion, whose sympathies toward students are very well known to the government. And the only response worthy of honor on the part of students would be to carry out the threat of the Kiev students – to organize a sustained and steadfast strike of all pupils in all higher educational institutions with the demand for the repeal of the Provisional Rules of July 29th, 1899.

But it is not only the student body that is obligated to answer the government. The government itself has taken care to make of this occurrence something far greater than merely a student affair. The government addresses public opinion, as though boasting of the vigor of its suppression, as though mocking all emancipatory strivings. And all conscious elements in all strata of the people are obligated to respond to this challenge if they do not wish to fall to the position of voiceless slaves silently bearing the affronts of bondage. And at the head of these conscious elements stand the advanced workers and the social-democratic organizations inseparably linked with them. The working class constantly endures immeasurably greater oppression and outrage from that police despotism with which students have now collided so sharply. The working class has already begun the struggle for its liberation. And it must remember that this great struggle imposes great obligations upon it, that it cannot liberate itself without liberating the entire people from despotism, that it is obligated above all and most of all to respond to every political protest and render it all possible support. The best representatives of our educated classes have proven and sealed with the blood of thousands of revolutionaries tortured by the government their capacity and readiness to shake from their feet the dust of bourgeois society and join the ranks of socialists. And that worker is unworthy of the name socialist who can look with indifference upon the government sending troops against students. The student went to aid the worker – the worker must come to aid the student. The government wants to dupe the people by asserting that the aspiration to political protest is simple hooliganism. Workers must publicly declare and explain to the broadest masses that this is a lie, that the true source of violence, outrages, and licentiousness is Russian autocratic government, the despotism of police and bureaucrats.

How to organize this protest – this must be decided by local social-democratic organizations and worker groups. Distribution, scattering, and pasting of leaflets, organization of meetings to which, if possible, all classes of society would be invited – these are the most accessible forms of protest. But it would be desirable that where there are firm and soundly established organizations, an attempt be made at broader and more open protest by means of public demonstration. A good example is the Kharkov demonstration of December 1st of last year before the offices of the "Yuzhny Krai." A jubilee of this vile newspaper – which incites hatred toward every aspiration for light and freedom and extols all the atrocities of our government – was being celebrated. Before the offices assembled a crowd which solemnly tore up copies of the "Yuzhny Krai," tied them to the tails of horses, wrapped them around dogs, threw stones and bottles of hydrogen sulfide through the windows with shouts of "Down with the venal press!" That is the kind of celebration truly deserved not only by the offices of venal newspapers but by all our government institutions. They celebrate a jubilee of official favor only rarely – they deserve a jubilee of popular vengeance always. Every manifestation of government arbitrary rule and violence is legitimate occasion for such demonstration. And let the government's open declaration of suppression of the students not go without an open answer from the people!

Written in January 1901.

Published in February 1901 in the newspaper "Iskra" No. 2

Printed from the text of the newspaper